https://youtu.be/7AgIjghaMbY
In our verse-by-verse study of Romans we have completed Romans chapter 4 and we are looking at an abbreviated study of the doctrine of imputation because it explains how God saves fallen mankind through Jesus Christ without compromising His perfection.
We noted that God's plan for mankind involves two judicial and five real imputations. The judicial imputations include mankind's personal sins to Jesus Christ on the cross and God's perfect righteousness to the believer for salvation.
The real imputations include human life to the soul, Adam's original sin to the old sin nature, eternal life to the human spirit, blessings in time to God's perfect righteousness that is possessed by believers, and blessings in eternity to the resurrection body.
Judicial imputations explain how God saves sinning mankind without compromising His perfect integrity.
God's plan begins at human birth, not at the new birth, and results in God's glory in eternity future by every person who ever lives by their receiving either eternal blessings with God in heaven or eternal condemnation from being consigned to the lake of fire forever.
In Romans 4 Paul refers to the second judicial imputation that is the imputation of God's perfect righteousness to the believer in Jesus Christ at salvation.
This process is explained in 2Cor 5:21; "He made Him who knew no sin (to be) sin as a substitute for us so that we might become the righteousness of God through Him."
All the time that God the Father was making Christ to be sin on our behalf Christ did not sin. The action of the aorist participle is coterminous with the action of the aorist active indicative of the main verb.
At salvation our personal sins are exchanged for the God's perfect righteousness that is imputed to us and is the predicate for our position in Christ that is the basis for our motivation and momentum for our advance to spiritual maturity.
In the judicial imputations, there is no antecedence, target, or home. Therefore, a judicial imputation only has the factor of what is being imputed.
Judicial imputation number two is one of blessing. Perfect righteousness is imputed to believers at salvation as described with Abram in Gen 15:6.
This judicial imputation of God's perfect righteousness establishes a grace pipeline that is encapsulated by God's integrity through the function of His perfect righteousness and justice.
On the giving end of the pipeline is God's justice that is function of His integrity. On the receiving end is God's perfect righteousness the principle of God's integrity that has been imputed to the believer at the point in time when the believer believed in Jesus Christ.
This imputation makes it possible for the believer to be the direct recipient of God's attributes such as God's love. Grace is the policy of the justice of God in imputing blessing to the perfect righteousness of God that is resident in the believer.
Perfect righteousness demands perfect righteousness; perfect justice demands perfect justice. For perfect God to remain perfect He must demand absolute perfection in man.
What God's perfect righteousness demands, God's perfect justice executes. The resident perfect righteousness of God, imputed to the believer at salvation, demands logistical grace support and added special blessing at spiritual maturity.
The grace pipeline is always insulated against human works, talent, or ability. Eph 2:8-9; Rom 3:20-24; Rom 4:3-5, 22; Matt 6:33; Rom 9:30, "That the Gentiles who did not strive for divine righteousness have attained divine righteousness, that is the righteousness from the source of faith in Jesus Christ."
This perfect righteousness is the basis of the first a fortiori. If God's justice accomplishes the greater at salvation, (the imputation of His perfect righteousness), it follows, a fortiori (with stronger reason), that He will not withhold the lesser (the imputation of escrow blessings).
In an a fortiori the greater refers to degree of effort. The object is the special blessings that glorify Christ. If God can impute His perfect righteousness to us at salvation, that requires greater effort than blessing us, then He can certainly bless us at the point of maturity, because that requires far less effort.
Therefore, the imputation of God's perfect righteousness establishes the potential for great blessing in time, both logistical and escrow. But it is only potential until it is linked with momentum from the PMA of Bible doctrine under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.
The imputation of God's perfect righteousness at salvation becomes both motivation and momentum in the Christian's spiritual life. It provides motivation to persist under the teaching of the pastor for the perception of doctrine, and momentum for continuing under the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit in order to understand and apply the doctrine.
The result is maximum doctrine resident in the soul that produces maturity adjustment to God's justice and the greater grace that comes from adding escrow blessing that glorifies God to logistical grace blessing.
We will encounter other categories of imputation that we will address as we move through our study. This brings us back to our verse-by-verse study of Romans at chapter 5.
In this chapter in verses 1-5 we will study the four results of justification and then under the term "much more" in verses 6-9 we will see the much more of justification followed by the much more of reconciliation in verses 10-12 and then a parenthetical of much mores in verse 13-17 and finish with the much more of grace in verses 18-21.